American Penny Drue Baird's intimacy with Paris runs deep. She grew up visiting the city, and she maintains a residence and a design practice there. Sharing that wealth of knowledge is the mission of her book. Entire chapters are devoted to the key design elements (architectural details, furniture, paint and wall treatments and beyond), and in each Baird shows and tells with authority, providing historical context, reminiscences and great anecdotes. Among its 180 color images are many by AD contributing photographer Durston Saylor.

The Monacelli Press, $45

Thad Hayes

"I love the idea of not having many possessions or attachments," Thad Hayes says in his first monograph. "I think it's very freeing to get to the point where you say, This is just stuff.' " The remark is classic Hayes, and in the 21 private residences he has chosen to walk readers through, the AD 100 designer's ability to edit is always on display. But so are his predilections for 1940s French furniture, calming palettes and, overall, a simple elegance. The projects vary in size and type, and each is generously presented, with photographs from AD contributing photographer Scott Frances.

Rizzoli, $55

R.F.K.

The archive of Harry Benson, an AD contributing photographer, overflows with iconic images of America: definitive moments, triumphant and tragic, in the nation's history since 1964, the year the Scottish-born Benson first visited the United States as a member of the Beatles' entourage. His 12th and most poignant book draws from his Robert F. Kennedy file, a story that begins in 1966 with optimism in the air, the young senator vacationing in Idaho with family and a few close friends. Two years later Kennedy was killed. Benson was there, with camera in hand.

PowerHouse Books, $39.95

Ghost Train to the Eastern Star

In 1975 celebrated author Paul Theroux published The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia, a book that riveted readers worldwide and that, critics say, reinvented the travel-writing genre. Some 30 years later Theroux is on that same path, riding the rails from Europe through Asia, contemplating in his inimitable way the myriad transformations of a continent and its people. "The decision to return to any early scene in your life is dangerous but irresistible," he writes, "not as a search for lost time but for the grotesquerie of what happened since."

Houghton Mifflin, $28

London

Architectural photographer Richard Bryant's 264-page, slipcased, limited-edition tip of the hat to his hometown is the rarest of travel experiences, the kind where you get to see practically everything—all from the best vantage points, in the most favorable light and in an unexpected but somehow very right sequence. It's a journey that could only occur in book form. Or, rather, in the form that publisher Rizzoli is so lauded for. Thanks to a giant trim size, heavy paper stock and superb production values, *London'*s images are alive on the page, making the gatefolds (there are seven in all) feel like an overindulgence. Which is precisely the point.

Rizzoli, $195

The Philip Johnson Tapes

In 1985, when Philip Johnson (1906-2005) was 79 years old and enjoying a spirited revival of interest in his work, AD 100 architect Robert A. M. Stern held a series of private interviews with the legendarily influential figure at his West 53rd Street Manhattan apartment. It was agreed upon between the two longtime friends that the recordings would see publication only after Johnson's death. Thus, he could speak openly about the most sensitive issues of his very colorful long life. On topics such as his upbringing, his controversial political maneuverings, his times at the Museum of Modern Art, the architecture profession and the often shocking gossip surrounding each, there would be little, if any, holding back. Anyone with an interest in history will find more than a few of these discussions highly engaging.

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